Cannot boot Windows XP

gott1rott · Nov 16, 2009

Ok I think my problem is pretty simple to fix but I do not know what to do. I have a hard drive with 2 partitions. Windows xp has is on one of the partition while Vista was on the other. Today I formatted the Vista partition and installed windows
7 64 on it, but now I no longer get the screen that gives me 30 seconds to choose which operating system I want to boot and 7 just boots automatically like it is the only OP. I checked the XP partition on W7 and all of the files are still there. What do I have to do?

raybay · Nov 16, 2009

Yep. You need to read up on dual boots... too much to go over here on this forum.
I suggest you reinstall both after your have copied all the Dual Boot documentation... then go through the dual boot again again step by step after you are familiar with the Windows 7 information..

LookinAround · Nov 17, 2009

raybay said:
Yep. You need to read up on dual boots... too much to go over here on this forum.
I suggest you reinstall both after your have copied all the Dual Boot documentation... then go through the dual boot again again step by step after you are familiar with the Windows 7 information..

@Raybay:

Huh? There's not "that much" to go over.. you just have to know what you're talking about!
And how much value do you add to this thread when you can only answer "Go look the problem up yourself" ??
Fact is: when you, yourself, have no clue what the answer is, better to remain quiet etc. (as the saying goes...)

@gott1rott:
> fyi: When one does a "clean" Win 7 install into a partition, it should detect older versions of Windows (in other partitions) itself and configure the dual boot for you
> For the current case, we'll need to modify the Win 7 boot manager to point to XP as well. I believe the easybcd tool should do the trick but need to double check things before getting back with specifics either later today or tomorrow

just wanted to give you the "heads up"

LookinAround · Nov 18, 2009

Hi gott1rott

Here' some info....

Win 7 and Vista use the same (and newest) Windows' boot manager.
> Since you already have XP installed, i'll assume XP's bootloader is already installed in the XP partition
> So we'll simply add an entry to Win 7's boot manager to XP (and XP's bootloader)

1. Download easybcd tool
2. If you also want to see easybcd documentation, click here
3. Run easybcd from Win 7. Click Add/Remove entries
> Set Type to XP
> Select Drive to the drive letter for your XP partition
> Click Save
4. Click Change Settings
> Choose the default boot OS and the boot menu timeout value (i.e how long to display the boot choices before it automatically boots to the defualt OS)
> Click Save
5. Reboot

Let us know.

Cannot boot Windows XP

gott1rott

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raybay

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LookinAround

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LookinAround

Posts: 6,429 +188

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